Childhood's Last Dance
by Becca Stareyes
Summary: Fic of NK Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy. Sieh knows he doesn't like the Arameri family and he doesn't like babysitting. As he's bound to protect an Arameri's childhood, he rediscovers he also has strong feelings about parents in general.


Thank you to my beta reader, Ambyr.

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One of the laws of physics of this universe is that the Arameri remove all the fun out of everything, just by being involved. And the higher up in the pecking order the Arameri is, the more fun they steal. To tell the truth, the old bat of a Matriarch was probably the closest a mortal can get to an elemental being of anti-fun, considering she shacked up with the actual embodiment of boring rules.

For an example, being ordered to play with their brats. Don't get me wrong, I _like_ playing with children. I mean, sure there'd be a chance we'd go off and a hundred years would pass or I'd let them get eaten by alligators - I'm not the god of Babysitting - but playing with children is something that I don't need much prompting to do. But you tell me, 'Sieh, play with Kinneth from sunset today until the end of the succession ceremony', couched in all the usual fullblood language of 'don't kill her, don't kill her playmates, don't break things…' (trust me, I only listen because sooner or later, someone will forget something), and that drains all the fun out of it. Because, as any child can tell you, the surest killer of fun is having to do what you're told.

On the other hand, I was tired from the Fire Day party I helped the servants put on a couple of days ago. Slaves got to stick together, and the lowblood Arameri are as much slaves of the Central Family as the Enefadeh are. If we were both free to do what we want, I'd tell them to fuck off, of course; but that's kind of the point. So I needed a boost after that, which meant play or mischief. While all the pranks I could pull at an Arameri party around people who are both scared of godlings and have no clue what we can do made me grin just to imagine them, play would do. And spending time with a stupid highblood Arameri brat is slightly better than an Arameri adult, if only because I had slightly more power over her.

Not that Kinneth isn't your typical highblood Arameri brat; as soon as she sees me at the reception, she practically drags me over. "Sieh! Come dance with me!" Which means I have to lead her around the floor, weaving about the adults who aren't smart enough or sober enough to not step on a girl who could be the ruler of the world someday. Most of the dances I know are games or country dances, because formal dancing's for grown-ups, but dancing in general is close enough to a game that I'm not bad when I put in a little effort. Tonight, I didn't bother.

"You're playing at being grown up again," I tell her. Because it's what children do, even if they then spend half of their adulthood wishing they spent more time being kids. Mortals. Enefa made them changeable and they alternate between wanting to change right now and wanting to never change.

Kinneth nearly sticks her tongue out at me. Last year she would have. "Daddy says someday I'll be in charge of the whole family," she tells me. "Then I can have as many parties as I want."

Of course she could. "Then why do you need to dance at this one?" I ask.

Kinneth shrugs. "Because I want to." Child logic: do what seems like fun at the time. It's what I always do.

I consider talking her into doing something else. Especially something that is more interesting than tripping party-goers and aping adults. Hopefully something that will have her asleep soon, so I can play my own games without a bossy tagalong. Unfortunately, Dekarta's orders keep me at her side until he counters them or until the end of tomorrow. But, I have a couple of stones in my pocket I was polishing for my orrey, and I can bring out En without having some nosy girl trying to touch him.

"Do you think I look pretty? Answer honestly," Kinneth says, and I can feel the leash that keeps me enslaved to her family tighten. She has to know it: there's a glint of something malicious in her eye, beyond normal childish temper. Even if she wasn't an Arameri, I can't lie to her.

I think quickly. Of course, if I could lie to her, I could tell her that she looked like someone had put a toad in her dolls' clothing. Making her cry or get mad would be worth it. But between the best dressmakers money could buy, lowbloods trained for years just to do hair and makeup for the highbloods, and scriveners on beck and call, even an Arameri who was wrinkled as a prune and as old as Sky itself would look regal and dignified and ready for an air bladder or a tack to be put on their seats. For the children and the younger family members, they look as good as mortals can actually achieve.

"You're a girl," I say. That doesn't mean much - in some kingdoms, it's _boys_ that are taught to look pretty for their future wives, and even among the Amn, the men can preen as much as the women - but it's a true and honest statement. "I don't care about stuff like girl dresses, so how should I know?"

Kinneth kicks me in the shins. "Dummy. Mother picked this dress out special for me. She said she wanted to make sure I was the prettiest person here, even prettier than her." She looks over where Dekarta and Ygreth were holding court. The Arameri don't even pretend they aren't the emperors of the world any more, and right now everyone else is making sure they do the proper amount of groveling in front of the Crown Prince on his last night of being the Crown Prince.

I follow her eyes. Ygreth looks more like a statue than a living woman, despite the fact she is making the same chitchat that her husband is - still as beautiful as art and magic can make someone, but distant, like she's already packed her bags for whatever afterlife her soul will be heading to and is just waiting for the carriage to arrive. I wonder why she gave enough of a damn to show up. Mortals: I don't understand them at all once they hit puberty, and I probably never will.

Kinneth pulls me into the crowd again, and I focus on steering her towards things I actually wanted to do. Because, like I said, if I'm going to be forced to be at a boring adult party hosted by people I hated, I'm going to get something out of it, even if it's just recovering some of my reserves.

I wonder, after the third or fourth visitor does a double-take and a quick detour as they recognize _something_ about me, if Kinneth is using me as a shield against the crowd. It won't deter most of the family, but will keep away the boors who somehow think a five year old would care about them - or idiots who somehow think they can put a hair out of line in the middle of fucking Sky the night before a succession ceremony. I'd admire the daring of trying something here, even as I laughed (bitterly) at the stupidity.

Or maybe it was her parents' idea to make me her bodyguard as well as her distraction, which makes me wonder how long they plan to keep up the half-measures of pretending that people don't just disappear for pissing off the wrong person in Sky.

After a while - I wasn't paying attention to the exact time, and Sky stays perfectly lit, even at midnight - I can feel Kinneth's movements slowing and see her eyelids drooping when she thought I wasn't looking.

"You look like you're going to fall asleep on the floor," I tell her. If she leaves, then I can leave too. Then there is only tomorrow to be stuck minding her.

"Am not," she says, but not as loud or angrily as she would have normally.

"Are too."

We're near a wall, windows showing the darkened countryside, reminding everyone exactly how high up Sky is and who owns the power holding us all here, like a spinning top balanced on its tip. I catch the glimpse of a reflection in the window and turn, feeling my pupils turn slit-like only to collapse back into pinpricks. Cat eyes are not useful in the bright lighting of Arameri gloating over their power.

Ygreth had walked over to join us. She ignores me, turning to Kinneth. "I expected you to have fallen asleep by now, and to have to tell Sieh to take you to your room."

"I'm not tired, Mother," Kinneth says, who stifles a yawn. "You and Father said I could stay up as long as I wanted tonight."

Ygreth nods. "I did. As long as you're awake."

"'m awake."

Ygreth places her hands on her hips and sighs. "Well, how about you come with me and we'll have one dance, and if you're still awake after that, you can stay."

I turn away. Because the utter... the utter _motherness_ she is projecting cuts through her marble Arameri shell, and it hurts. I want to scream at her as she and Kinneth glide towards the center of the room that she is an _idiot_ to choose her husband's need for even more power, to become king snake of this pit of vipers, over moments like these, that Arameri were all heartless bastards for setting up this whole system. How can she care for her daughter while knowing she'd chosen to leave her grieving? I want to strike down every Arameri child, lest they grow up to be Arameri adults who will continue killing their offspring's childhoods.

I want to scream at the descendants of the woman who gave that mortalfucker the poison that killed my own mother. How dare they even pretend to love their children, for even a little while.

But that bastard Dekarta's orders still my tongue: he'd probably figured I'd try to lead Kinneth into trouble. Probably hadn't figured that I'd want to throw a fit and scream some good obscenities and damning secrets in the middle of his party. I feel the choking of my leash, the leash made of my dead mother's power, and go to try some punch to clear a throat that was a bit too corporeal for my tastes.

I may also have put some of the spices I'd picked up somewhere in the punchbowl as well. You know, for kicks.

Kinneth has nearly fallen asleep in her mother's arms, before Ygreth orders a servant to take her to her rooms, and me to follow. I don't look back, because I don't know what would be worse: seeing doubt on Ygreth's face, or finding none there.

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End Notes

So, I tried to hint at some of the depth of the relationship between Kinneth and her mother such that the events of _The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms_ would happen. There's a lot unspoken there because Ygreth and Kinneth are both dead when the novel begins, but we see some of the conflict in the family head raising children in _The Kingdom of Gods_ - the balance between loving your kids and raising them to be ruthless.

The parallel between Sieh having to deal with one of his fathers killing his mother and Kinneth about to unknowingly deal with the fallout of her mother sacrificing herself for her father's ambition, struck me as I was planning. Originally, I was going to write a scene with a now-adult Kinneth using that as a weapon at the gods who had kept her from learning earlier (albeit unwillingly), but this ended up standing on its own to me.


End file.
